20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Living Daylights (1987)
4. “It’s All So Boring Here, Margo!”
Steel plates collecting rainwater for drinking covered the tallest cliffs on the Rock of Gibraltar, preventing Arthur Wooster from filming The Imposter’s (Carl Rigg’s) burning Land Rover plunging towards the ocean, whilst footage shot using the lower cliffs was unsatisfactory.
Instead, the scene was shot at Beachy Head near Eastbourne, East Sussex. Poor weather, the tides, an undershot Land Rover, and a mannequin representing James Bond in a parachute that refused to keep its head on made filming difficult. Additionally, the Eastbourne Lifeboat crew had to rescue the team recovering the Bond mannequin and were later awarded certificates of thanks by Desmond Llewelyn at a local showing of the film.
Whilst tidying up after themselves at the direction of Eastbourne Borough Council, the Bond crew also discovered numerous wrecked stolen cars alongside the Bond mannequin and the crashed Land Rovers!
B.J. Worth performed Double-0 Seven’s parachute escape from the Land Rover, using “smoke pockets” stitched into the chute to simulate it burning. Bond’s landing aboard the yacht, Moonmaiden II, intruding upon the beautiful Linda (model, Kell Tyler, now known as Belle Avery), was filmed in Tangier harbour where Timothy Dalton was guided onto the yacht by a crane.